Product Management Intern

Parallel Systems • Los Angeles, CA

5d

About The Position

Parallel Systems is seeking a Product Intern to help shape the software platform used by its team, operators, and rail partners to run an autonomous freight network. This hands-on role involves owning a product problem and working at the intersection of engineering, operations, and customers. The intern will talk to users, analyze data, define requirements, and work with software engineers to scope and ship a platform feature.

The intern will work through a structured product lifecycle: discovery, problem definition, requirements, delivery with engineering, launch, and measurement. The 12-week experience includes onboarding and shadowing, project assignment and user research, requirements and design reviews, build and testing support, and a launch or handoff with measurement, documentation, and a presentation. Progress is tracked through weekly mentor check-ins and reviews and feedback from engineering, operations, and users.

Requirements

• Currently pursuing a degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Industrial Engineering, or a related technical field.
• Hands-on product, engineering, or startup experience through internships, student teams, research, or personal projects.
• Technical fluency to read code, understand system architecture, and discuss tradeoffs with engineers.
• Experience working with data, such as writing SQL or analyzing data in Python or spreadsheets.
• Strong written communication and the ability to write clear, concise specifications and documents.
• Ability to bring structure to ambiguous problems and drive work forward with limited direction.
• Enthusiasm for a hard-tech environment where software meets physical vehicles and real operations.

Nice To Haves

• Prior software engineering or product management internship, or experience shipping a software product at a startup or on a student team.
• Experience conducting user interviews or usability testing and translating findings into requirements.
• Experience building prototypes or simple apps, or comfort with design tools such as Figma.
• Familiarity with B2B, enterprise, or operations software.
• Interest in logistics, transportation, rail, robotics, or industrial technology.
• Experience on hands-on extracurricular engineering teams such as Formula SAE, robotics, autonomous systems teams, or similar.
• Strong documentation habits and attention to detail.

Responsibilities

• Own a specific product problem on the software platform, scoped to team priorities.
• Interview operators, rail partners, and internal teams to understand workflows and pain points.
• Turn research into clear problem statements, user stories, and requirements.
• Work with engineering and design to scope, prioritize, build, and launch a platform feature.
• Improve fleet operations workflows for monitoring, dispatching, and managing vehicles and freight.
• Define success metrics, query fleet and usage data, and use findings to inform product decisions.
• Assess opportunities, the competitive landscape, and tradeoffs to inform the product roadmap.
• Support feature development and testing, gather user feedback, and iterate on scope.
• Measure early results, document findings and recommended next steps, and present outcomes to the broader team.

What This Job Offers

• Job Type: Full-time
• Career Level: Intern
• Education Level: No Education Listed